Harry without Hermione, Hermione without Harry
by half fare prince
Summary: Collected one-shots and moments, canonical and noncanonical, about Harry or Hermione without Harry or Hermione. NEW 8/11: "And And And," about Hermione and friendship and bravery and—
1. Essence of Murtlap

Essence of Murtlap / fifth year

She could always do things alone but with other people she worried. She worried about what people thought of her, about what she thought of other people. Once in primary all the boys and girls had to give a speech about aeroplanes, and she worried about hers for weeks and it was wonderful, her best work yet, and the teacher and even the students applauded politely and didn't say anything at all about her hair or her voice or her teeth. Then the next girl stuttered and sniffed and cried through hers, half-prepared, and Hermione had to leave the room. The next morning she wouldn't leave her bed—her parents tried to talk to her through the locked door but eventually she was running a fever and it was a week before she could go leave her room again and go to school.

She's not afraid of accidents by herself but in aeroplanes there are all the other people and all their families.

So it's not fair that she met him, that he saved her, that she's a part of the terrifying thing into which he's been drafted. That she needs him to need her, and that he does. She knows that he cared about other people before he was allowed to know any and when she is overwhelmed now that keeps her from locking herself in her room.

She knows he'll be back soon and she knows—she is very smart, sometimes when she gives speeches the teacher and even the students who say terrible things to each other about her teeth applaud politely when she's finished—she knows that eventually she will have to deal with the way he makes her feel. But she locks that up and earlier she hummed while she was mixing the ingredients so that her breathing stayed even and her hands kept steady.

"Here," she says anxiously, pushing a small bowl of yellow liquid toward him. "Soak your hand in that. It should help."

Thanks, he says. She thinks about things so that she won't run a fever. He is a good person—good in a way he can't understand. She thinks that's what makes her feel the way she does. She names it and she locks it up because he cares about everybody, even people he's not allowed to know, and she has to think about it because that's what she loves about him, anyway.


	2. And And And

And And And / first year

Ron is bleeding the next room over, but she's not thinking about it because Harry, best friend Harry, Harry the friend she has, is about to go off and die. She believes in him, but she believes in that—that maybe today and certainly eventually Harry is going to be asked to die, in one way or another, and he's not even going to think about it, like he hasn't thought about what he might do beyond the door.

She could get the riddle wrong and maybe there would be problems with this world but her parents are just dentists and his uncle just sells drills and she was going to go to university, eventually. But what would she be to anybody if she couldn't get a little riddle right?

She could have forgotten about her extra herbology readings, just then, and eventually a professor would have found them; she could have kept her friends from panicking too much, and she could have panicked just enough. Panicking just enough wouldn't have been difficult.

But what would they be together, if not this? She doesn't know what they would do together if they weren't snooping, if they just wanted to talk about quidditch, if the two of them just needed someone to talk about it with.

But she knows who she is now, at least. At least here. She puzzles it out immediately—that's who she always was—and she waits a little while after, like he'll expect, and she looks at him and he doesn't seem to mind so she must not be getting weird about looking at him like she thinks. Who she is now has been given the chance to do something good instead of just right, instead of just correctly, and of course that's what they'll do together. That's what they do together.

"There are more important things—like friendship, and bravery, and" and even then she thinks about how a year ago she didn't have anyone to sit around with, to eat next to, to laugh with or think about or hug and she looks at her dead friend and she hugs him and and and she says, "Oh, Harry!"


End file.
